Generally, we watch any old crap round here – in the interest of being a representative, even-handed site obviously – from Marley & Me to Apocalypse Now,it’s all fair grist to the review grinder-yep,we even sat through Troll 2 once.
But just occasionally there are some movie crimes so cynical and heinous in their deployment that we’re robbed of even the enjoyment bought by bright shapes moving around a large screen.
Twilight: New Moon is one of them…
The Twilight Saga’s advance guard of posters and promos have been doing the rounds for a few weeks now, it’s gangsta/Calvin Klein ad Werewolves looking like the world’s worst boy band as they balefully bring to life everything awful about post-Rowling fiction in one sanitised, imaginatively stultified package
The reasons for the unerring – and to most people over 30,completely mystifying – popularity of the Virginity-embracing Goth-a-thon are manifold and as ancient as the vampire myth itself, but the main one?
Boredom.
To contextualise; it’s probably worth remembering at this point that tabloid fodder Cradle of Filth are from a small country village, the interminable ennui of small-town existence producing gratuitous, theatrical stabs at an inescapable conformity that have absolutely nothing to do with the isolationist work of their contemporaries
Twilight has risen from the endless malaise of the American Midwest. Despite the stunning scenery, for many growing up there it’s an endless vista of mini-malls and soccer meets, a land robbed of endless opportunity that retains a general snobbishness for any authentic ‘old-world’ culture (”What do you eat in Britain?” Is a standard enquiry I received while travelling), and while this is a gross oversimplification; in terms of romance, Utah is up there with Chernobyl.
It’s no wonder then that the Disneyfied, stripey-sock Goth peddled by Hot topic is grasped so ravenously by teenagers in a locale where dying your hair or missing church is a rebellious act, and although tweens the world over go through endless recycling of these tropes the constant marketing of them as a substitute for genuine invention is a troubling one. Potter and his ilk are the spawn of daytime TV and half-remembered nursery tales, rather than any familiarity with actual fantastical literature. It may be churlish to suggest, but I’d be sorely surprised if J.K’s library included anything by Lord Dunsany. Tapping into a culturally bereft society doesn’t gift a work with any greater kudos.
Likewise Twilight is born of a warped, half developed sexuality, a flirting with defiance in the face of the US religious machine, and the deeply unsatisfied and unrealised yearnings of its author. Vampires are the ultimate asexual – the bite representing a non-threatening penetration – that means they are non-threatening romantic partners, perfect grist for the mill of the unsettlingly carried out (if well-intentioned) Chastity movement the books encourage. While virginity and chastity are both admirable qualities, they are very personal ones that shouldn’t be enforced by mass-media or religion; to do so is a backwards step, rather than a liberating one. Here non-sensationalist information is the key, not mass hypnosis.
Most movies try to sell you a tie-in computer game and a McDonald’s happy meal. Twilight tries to sell you morality.
Twilight (And Buffy beforehand, although Weedon at least realised this and had fun with it) is in effect Mills and Boone without the edge. Here there’s no sex, and while there’s haemoglobin aplenty even death is robbed of it’s power.
Author Stephanie Meyer claims the novel is about ‘losing true love’, but has aimed it squarely at a population so cut off from genuine interaction the word becomes meaningless, a substitute for parental affection and an excuse to pretend at the rebellious. In one of the most telling scenes Bella’s ability to commune with Edward is enhanced when she pursues ‘The Dangerous’. In this case, riding a motorcycle – that ever present symbol of disaffection for American youth. Meyer has crafted a work where motorcycles and leather jackets stand-in for danger, where Italy represents the entire planet outside the Midwestern bowl, and where dreaming of wider horizons inevitably leads to terror and sadness-or at least a simulation of it.
New Moon offers an endless curse – one of morbid, flatulent commercialism infecting its victims with a warped feminine ideal where the answer to everything is a good man who doesn’t want to have sex. It has more in common with Mona the Vampire than Dracula – this is sex and death without the sex and death played out by blandly attractive mannequins whose only supernatural power is the height of their hair.
Excited yet?
13 Comments
Small note: the series takes place, I think, in Washington state. That would be the Pacific Northwest and not the Midwest. They’re slightly different cultures, though admittedly it would be difficult for a non-USian to tell.
Nah I know, I’m culturally generalising sorry-I’ve spent some time in Idaho and Oregon, and while Portland is a different culture to Boise (as an example), there’s still that religious undercurrent I’m afraid – at least in my experience. In my defence I’d say the thrust of the article is aimed at the culture imposed on the fans and dumbing down/corpratisation in general, although I’d admit to generalising throughout -apologies to any Pacific North-westers tuning in, well pointed out though, cheers!
Idaho and Utah are also not the Midwest. And I take issue with calling Utah the Chernobyl of romance. I grew up there and I do not lack a sense of the romantic and it’s complete snobbery on your part to suggest that. Typical European condescension to the United States: so easy, so unoriginal.
its = belonging to it
it’s = the contraction for it is.
Pattie…learn how to read. It’s in my comment is correct. What are thinking the antecedent to “it” would have been in my sentence if you were correct about my making a mistake? In your defense, I do suppose it would have been better had my sentence read as follows: “I grew up there, and I do not lack a sense of the romantic; it’s complete snobbery on your part to suggest that.”
I dunno-that’s what I get for writing this stuff in my lunch hour I suppose. Laura, I quite like the States, for starters, everything is twice as big and half the price, which, to be honest, may also be the problem. But you aren’t suggesting that Ms.Meyer’s work is truly romantic are you?
Interceptor,
Heavens, no, I’m not suggesting her work is romantic. I don’t think it’s well written or romantic (only strangely difficult to put down). I apologize…it just gets my dander up when people make damning assumptions about my childhood home (also, Meyer is not from Utah; she’s from Arizona). If you want good Utah writing, read Wallace Stegner, Terry Tempest Williams, and even Shannon Hale.
Never make a generalisation, it makes an ass out of u an… hang on that’s not right is it?
ah well
*doffs bowler hat and drinks tea*
hang on hang on, whose ass is this anyway? Ex! – have you been leaving carrots about the place again? No wonder they keep wandering in..
Laura -thanks, I’ll give them a go, if only because ‘Terry Tempest Williams’ is a truly fantastic name!
By adoption, I also recommend Laurel Thatcher Ulrich as a nearly-Utahn writer. Although born in Idaho, she picked-up her B.A. at the University of Utah on her way to Harvard University’s faculty. Much of her writing is about people, events, and issues of Utah.
Going back to Twilight, I’ll admit I never read the books and have only seen the one movie – but it seemed to be kinda lacking in strong female characters. My friend reliably informs me that the saga consists mostly of the frail, indecisive mortal girl being saved from sexualised assaults by handsome, capable men.
I’m not sure who you are referring to as “cut off from genuine interaction.” Utahns? Americans? Tween readers? Regardless of which group, what is your basis for that assumption? That tweens or religious Utahns avoid premarital sex? Is that what you mean by “genuine interaction?” Do you think American religions discourage interaction?
This seems like a really unintelligent thing to say.
I mean that most of the target audience are unfortunately living in an imposed simulated bubble, with little knowledge of what’s outside it. Unfortunately mass media saturation is reaching the point where there is a large section of the young population who actually believe that ‘The Hills’ represents a normal existance. Twilight, in my opinion, offers up some rather disturbing ideas hidden under a veneer of romance that bears little resemblence to the real thing, and is going to leave a lot of people very disappointed and lonely.